I spent two sessions in the yard today (5/4/2017) to good advantage.  I’m beginning to see more spring/summer birds and migrants.  I missed photos of two Orange-crowned warbler visits and one by a male Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon male).  But my big sighting for the day were two male Western tanagers.  I first spotted a male high on a dead limb near the top of a fir tree and managed some poor, but identifiable photos.  A short while later another male l(this one in non-breeding plumage) flew down to the watercourse and had a bath.  That I managed to photograph…

I still have several different species of ‘sparrows’ in the yard – if you want to count House sparrows, which are actually finches.  Here’s one of our White-crowned sparrows…

And to my surprise, we still have a pair of Golden-crowned sparrows in the yard.  They have usually headed north by this time.  I would love to have them stay and breed here, which is unlikely, and we don’t have a good record with breeding sparrows and Brown-headed cowbirds.

We also have at least one Spotted towhee and one Dark-eyed junco (Oregon race) which I saw but didn’t photograph today.

We have several Black-capped chickadees in the yard, although they aren’t as numerous as the Chestnut-backed chickadees which seem to prefer the conifers in the neighborhood.  This is one I photographed while it was enjoying a bath in the watercourse.

The Red-breasted nuthatch is a bird I usually find difficult to photograph, so I was happy to catch a couple of bathing trips to the watercourse.

It seems that we may have only one nuthatch visiting the yard, a fairly significant departure from past years.  Nuthatches secrete food in tree bark to retrieve later.  I watched as this nuthatch attempted to wedge a tidbit from one of the feeders into a crack in a madrone tree.  Notice the food below and to the left of the nuthatch, wedged into the crack.  It should have left well enough alone.  In attempting to further secure the seed in the crack it dislodged it and immediately dropped to retrieve it.

And finally (there’s always a ‘finally’!), here’s a female Northern flicker on our peanut feeder.  I usually don’t post photos of birds on feeders, but I liked the details in this photo.  Incidentally, this is a feeder that discriminates against non-clinging birds.  For the most part this feeder caters to woodpeckers, chickadees, nuthatches and bushtits.  Birds that aren’t used to clinging to things tend to avoid this type of feeder.  If I can help you with feeder advice, let me know!

I want to express my appreciation to friends for complimenting me on my photography!